Erica Borghard

Associate Research Scholar, Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies
International Affairs Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations

​Erica D. Borghard is an International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, where she will be exploring escalation dynamics in cyberspace. For the past three years, she has served as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Sciences and Executive Director of the Grand Strategy Program at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Dr. Borghard received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University. Her dissertation, “Friends with Benefits? Power and Influence in Proxy Warfare,” explores the dynamics of proxy alliances and proxy warfare, focusing on the politics of plausible deniability and implications for how states control and influence the behavior of their proxies. Erica’s current research agenda focuses on cyber warfare, in particular, cyber proxies, coercion and deterrence in cyberspace, and escalation dynamics in cyberspace. Erica’s research has appeared in a variety of academic and policy journals, including American Political Science Review, Security Studies, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, Parameters, and Orbis. She has also published pieces for The Cato Institute, The National Interest, CNN.com, and The Washington Post. Erica is a Term Member at the Council on Foreign Relations.